Paris is sweltering in the run-up to the 2024 Olympic games. The city is swarming with military personnel armed with heavy artillery, and the streets, hot enough to fry and egg on, are barricaded with metal fencing that makes pedestrian navigation exceptionally challenging. Our pilgrimage for the perfect Parisian retro game hangout, somewhere to drown out the bustle of increasingly dense tourism, has been trying.
Google has recommended venues we have travelled to thus far - from arcades to arcades - have all been derelict on arrival. With daylight starting to flicker and our collected Uber bill inching somewhere toward the approximate cost of the London to Paris flight, we set our sights on one final destination: the Extra Life Café.
"It says it’s here," mutters the Uber driver, peering out either side of the vehicle as he crawls up an uncharacteristically empty, narrow street on a fairly steep incline. There are residential apartments encased in typically beautiful French architecture and several businesses that seem to have closed early, but no sign of the gaming oasis. We alight the vehicle and start GPSing, walking up and then turning left down a long, fairly broad, yet nicely kept alleyway.
Suddenly, a thirty-something man with glasses and a Sonic The Hedgehog T-Shirt appears, and we’re filled with hope. And there, blended into the alley’s new red brick, the cafe’s sign beams from orange sunsetting walls.
The Extra Life Café is of particular interest to gamers and retro gamers alike, because it’s a venue that, for once, isn’t a Barcade. In fact, there is a no liquor, no smoking rule. What they do have, on the upper floor and entrance foyer, is a cute coffee shop and restaurant for all-day gamers to top up their energy.
There are plenty of drinks available and a table of guys chowing down on a late-night round of fetching-looking pizzas. At the back of the room, a small, neon-lit doorway beckons down a stairwell to wonders unknown. A staff member explains the two-tiered entry fee system, whereby one can purchase a 7 Euro ticket that comes with a choice of simple sodas and a host of imaginative syrup choices, or the premium 9.50 tier offering up milkshakes and a range of coffees.
Whichever you select, you get a timestamped ticket (that must not be lost!) and an hour of free playing in the gaming den. Every 30 minutes you stay beyond the initial hour incurs a nominal 3 Euro charge, and the total is collected on departure.
Considering the costs of Paris right now, where massive inflation has pushed the famously expensive city into wallet pile-driving pain, we were pleasantly surprised by how reasonable it all was. Armed with an iced coffee, we head downstairs, where the gamer restaurant vibe gives way to pure hobbyist heaven, its glowing stairs adorned with retro gaming signage and a giant wall painting of Bare Knuckle’s Mega Drive cover.
Inside the den proper, we’re hit with pink neon skirted ceilings, tasteful brickwork, and a row of beautifully preserved Sega Astro City arcade cabinets to the right - five in total running either side of a decorative waist-high wall. They’re accompanied by a large, custom four-player Turtles cabinet on the far side and a multi-game flatscreen machine where someone is furiously combo-building on King of Fighters.
To the left, tables across the room run various modern consoles with a large selection of games that can be changed on request. The consoles themselves - PS4s, PS5s and Nintendo Switches - lie strapped to the walls, doubling as floating ornaments. A casual section for people who just want to kill an afternoon, or go head-to-head for multiplayer laughs that aren’t dulled by a cold internet connection, it offers plenty of variety. Tucked around the corner we discover a full-blown, two-player Dancing Stage machine, the thoughtful interior design extending to a back wall adorned with directional arrows.
It’s an inviting, cosy, alluring place that makes excellent use of its spaces… and it’s hot. Paris won’t allow air-conditioning units on the exterior of buildings so as to preserve the city’s beauty, but Extra Life’s wall fans are working flat out, even at 9pm, to keep people from succumbing to the summer heatwave.
To the direct right of the entrance door lies a second room, an enormous and enormously impressive additional cave that could double as a giant art installation mock-up of a Hikikomori bedroom. The length of the left wall is dedicated to a vast manga library, a collection Extra Life’s sibling founders Greg and his brother Ghislain began assembling when they were kids. Mostly French translated, there are enough books to spend years poring through, and the dedicated space, with seating and a relaxed ambience, is an excellent place to attack an anthology or two.
Framed anime cels and manga sketches dress the wall toward the ceiling bays, Greg telling me how the wonderful art, hailing from the likes of Samurai Pizza Cats and Hokuto no Ken, are all originals. On the room’s right side, giant CRTs and one PVM in need of repair stand boldly above an assortment of consoles; Sega Saturns, Super Nintendos and PlayStations, all modded with a catalogue of games, spew forth a hell of wires from a custom wall-length cabinet.
At the far end, in a tucked-away pocket behind a half-wall, a group of Pokémon die-hards are competing online, a composed team effort locked in battle. We’re asked to give them a little space to focus, and Greg explains that the cafe often hosts competitions, many of which begin when the doors open at 2 pm and often extend beyond the usual 10 pm closing time.
What’s clear about Extra Life is that it’s a place built out of passion for the hobby, and perhaps that’s why it’s outlasted so many other retro gaming establishments in France’s capital. Greg tells me how he lived in London for four years before heading to the USA for an additional two with barely any money, just for the experience. He returned to Paris in 2015, and, with a large collection of software, equipment and manga, creating a gaming hangout seemed a logical endeavour.
It proved more complicated and costly than simply setting up shop, he tells me, but nevertheless, the brothers persevered, unboxing their collection of treasures for public consumption. Even now, as he explains how the arcade machines are all running original PCBs; one fitted with a working Neo Geo MVS multi-slot; another with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike; and one demoing a new RPi5-powered multi-game setup he’s testing for a friend, his desire to keep the cafe at an optimal level is clear.
Places like these light up cities for like-minded residents and travelling gamers. When you’ve spent a day tripping around one of the world’s most beautiful cities, exhausted and desperate to escape the sun, Extra Life Café, with its cosy, nostalgic concept and hardcore gaming offerings, is the perfect place to hit continue.